Install new Aura X

Envoy install

The original Apple SSD is installed into the Envoy external case. Case is included in Aura X kit but sold separate if you purchase just the Aura X SSD as a module.

Please note ONLY the Apple SSD is compatible with the Envoy case. You can not use the Aura X SSD in the Envoy case.

Restart using USB

Plug the MacOS installer USB into your Mac and restart the computer.

The Mac should boot into the MacOS Utilities page. If you see a question mark, the mac is not booting off the USB. If you see a spinning earth globe the Mac is trying to do an internet recovery. In both cases, turn off the Mac by holding down the power button. Restart the Mac holding down the option key. This will load the boot manager, you should see a yellow disk symbol called Install MacOS, click on this to boot the mac off the USB drive.

Go to Disk Utility

Initialise Aura X

The Aura X SSD has to be initialised using APFS format.

Name your new SSD, choose APFS and Erase (initialise)

Plug in Envoy

Plug the Envoy case into a spare USB port. Do not remove the MacOS installer USB.

The Envoy will now appear in Disk Utility as an external drive.

Select Aura X

In the left hand window of Disk Utility select the initialised Aura X SSD.

Click on Restore

On the top menu of Disk Utility is a restore feature. This is the Apple inbuilt cloning software.

To restore, both drives have to be the same format type (APFS).

Choose the source

Restore will pop up a window to ask for the source. This is your original SSD. Your Mac will now clone (restore) your original SSD to the new Aura X SSD.

Restart and Reset

Once the Restore has finished, you can shut down the Mac, remove all USB devices and restart the Mac.

It will boot off the new Aura X.

In system preferences, select Start Up Disk.

Unlock to make changes

Select new Aura X and restart.

This tells the Mac to boot off the new Aura X, and it stops the Mac looking for the original SSD.

Cloning software?

For Samsung or other branded M.2 SSDs we recommend Macrium Reflect, the free version.

Why not Samsung’s Migration software? Samsung’s software is not compatible with any external cloning case. If you are cloning internally, and not using a clone case, then Samsung’s software can be used.

M.2 into Clone case

First step is to put teh new M.2 drive into the external enclosure and plug into your computer via the USB-A or USB-C port.

Clone to new M.2

If you are using Acronis or Macrium, run the software (we have guides for both software) and clone your old M.2.

You do not need to format the drive first, the software will format the drive as part of the cloning.

Install new M.2

When the cloning has finished. Power off the computer, unplug the power and install the new SSD by replacing the old M.2.

Use your computer’s manual or service manual for the correct procedure.

Hold your M.2 SSD by the edges, do not touch the gold pins. Align the notch with the ridge in the M.2 slot and insert at a 30 degree angle.

If you are adding a second M.2, set the new M.2 as the primary drive.

Turn on your computer

Once the new SSD is installed, you can turn on the computer and have some fun!

Troubleshooting

Upgradeable tries to be accessible, we have numerous ways to be contacted, we provide support to all our customers.

Password

Warning

If you are cloning to a non Crucial SSD such as Samsung, you can not use the free Acronis software and we recommend Macrium. If Acronis did not clone properly, then Macrium is the software we recommend as an alternative.

Macrium Reflect Free

If you are cloning to a non Crucial SSD such as Samsung, you can not use the free Acronis software and we recommend Macrium.

If Acronis did not clone properly, then Macrium is the software we recommend as an alternative.

Macrium is not as user friendly but extremely powerful. If you need help, please contact our office.

To start: search for “Macrium Free Reflect”. We recommend the free home edition. The 30 day trial version is good but it stops working after the trial period. The “free” version has everything we need to clone a drive.

Run download installer

The install should be called ReflectDLHF but later editions could have a different name.

Double click to run the install.

You want to make sure you are installing the free edition.

Once the download starts there will be a progress screen.

Install Macrium

Select the drive

The top drive should be the original hard drive you want to clone. Double check. If it is the correct drive, then click the link highlighted in the red box

Clone to…

Now you have to select the target drive, the new SSD where you are cloning the drive to.

Click on “Select a disk to clone to” link and a list of available drives should appear.

If the new SSD is not there, check it has been plugged in, check connections.

Optional – delete

If the drive has been formatted/initialised or if it has been used, then it will have exisiting partitions. These need to be deleted. In the example shown, you can see one large blue partition called SSD.

If you have to do this option, then select the parition and click on “Delete Exisiting partition” link.

Please note, if you are using a new SSD from Upgradeable, there will be no existing partitions, you do not have to do this step.

Drag down partitions

You can see three partitions in our example. Using your mouse, drag each partition down to the new SSD.

The partitions need to be in the same order.

Optional: Increase size

Sometimes the last partition is not the right size. You can see there is grey space on the right of the last partition. This means the drive will not be formated to the maximum size. We have to increase the partition size.

Sometimes there is a small recovery partition last that is stopping the main partition from expanding into the right size. If this is the case you need to delete the partitions on teh SSD and make sure the largest partition is the last one on the drive nex to the grey space. A partition can only expanding into empty space by being next to that empty space.

Drag to increase

Grab the dotted line and drag the partition size into the empty space to increase partition size

Both the same

Both drives should be the same or similar if you had to move a partition around.

Skip schedule

You do not need to schedule we are doing it now, click next

Final Check

Macrium gives you are the details, give it a quicjk look to check it is all ok.

Uncheck save

We do not need to save this backup, uncheck and click ok

Warning

Macrium tells you which drive is about to be overwritten.

This will be your new SSD.

Is this right?

Click continue

Progress

Macrium will now give you a progress bar, you can see the clone has started.

Finished

When the clone has finished, a pop up box should appear with the time it took.

Install SSD

Once the cloning has finished, safely shut down the computer.

Please consult your computer’s user manual on how to replace the old hard drive with your newly cloned SSD. Once installed, the cloned SSD will start up as normal, just a lot faster!

We recommend customers keep the old hard drive in a safe place for a few weeks to make sure everything is ok with the newly cloned SSD.

The hard drive can be reused, Upgradeable sells cases that can turn the old hard drive into an external hard drive for extra storage or as a back up device.

If the computer does not reboot or reboots into Windows here are a list of solutions:

1. Check there are no USB or micro card attached. You can have mouse and keyboard and the SSD attached to the computer via USB but no other peripherals.

2. Disable Secure Boot in the system BIOS. Google your model name and “how to disable secure boot in BIOS”. That should bring up instructions on how to get in BIOS and where to find “Secure Boot” option.

If Acronis is not cloning we recommend using Macrium. Google “Macrium Reflect Free” and download the free home version. Macrium is a bit harder to use, if you get stuck with all the options, please call our office. Macrium will show all the hidden partitions. All the partitions are essential for Windows to work. If you are using Win10, you’ll see a few of them. When cloning you need to drag each partition down in the right order, do not leave any out.

If you are having trouble with Macrium, download and install Teamviewer. With this software activated, call our office and one of our support people can share your screen and do the cloning via remote access.

Mac users tend to hang onto their Macs for a while, handed them down through the family or re-purpose them within the office.

At Upgradeable, we are no different. Our 2006 iMac, now lives in our upgrade centre. It has a simple function, browsing the internet, word processing, printing out receipts. It is running OS X Tiger, we have upgrade to the maximum of 2GB of RAM. However, after more RAM, the next most effective upgrade is an SSD drive.

How much improvement could an SSD have on a 7 year old Mac? (with a Intel Core Duo 1.83Ghz processor)

We were skeptical on how much difference it would make, however the results blew us away, and have really confirmed what we have been telling all our customers – upgrading to an SSD is like getting a new computer for the price of an upgrade.

Before we replaced the drive, we ran a few simple speed tests to get a comparison to measure the improvement.

The facts (and images) speak for themselves…

Old hard drive speed score (click image to enlarge)

New SSD speed score (click image to enlarge)

Overall the Xbench score saw a four fold increase in speed, from a ranking of 50 to over 200.

What’s more impressive is the uncached randow read write scores. This is really starting to simulate real world computing.
The random uncached write went from 1.67 mb per second to 90.91 MB per second!!
The random uncached read went from 0.24 mb per second to 14.84 MB per second!!

Statistics are one thing, but what was the real world usage like? People will be out there saying the whole Mac is a bottleneck, it can not make that much of an improvement.

Boot time is now 11 seconds.

We have comfortably installed Parallels with Windows XP and it runs fast and smooth.

It is now a pleasure to work on this computer. There are no lag in load times, software loads crisp and fast. It has a new lease on life, and everyone in the office wants to use it, especially when the customers come in, to show off how an SSD can speed up your old Mac.

Realistically, we can not install OS X Mavericks and in many ways it is not the same as a new Mac. However, we all have old Macs lying around, with a simple SSD upgrade, they’ll become useful again.

Let us extend the life of your Mac. Read our simple guides, follow the SSD on our top menu, or call our upgrade team on 1800 289 726 and we can help step you through what you need and how you can do it.

With no optical drives (DVD) the current range of Mac’s, how is this possible?

In the past a Mac user would reach for their OSX discs that shipped with their Mac. The current range does not ship with OSX discs.

At our upgrade centre, we provide cloning and SSD installation services (interested?) , and our technical team have solutions for every problem that occurs when performing RAM and SSD upgrades. To replace you current hard drive with a SSD with a fresh version of OSX , you will need OSX Mavericks on a USB drive. Macworld have a excellent article, if you want to learn more about all the different ways it can be done.

Here is the Upgradeable way…

If you currently don’t run Mavericks, and you are using Snow Leopard or Mountain Lion then download Mavericks from the Apple website. It will be saved as an installer file. You will need an empty USB drive, minimum 8GB. Plug USB drive into your Mac. Open Disc Utility (/Applications/Utilities) and drag the Maverick’s installer file onto it. Click Restore tab. Select it from the list as the source. Drag USB drive from the list into Destination: After clicking restore it will create a bootable version of Mavericks on the USB drive. It will take about 20 minutes.

If you already have Mavericks installed as your OSX then you need to use a free utility called Diskmaker X . You will need an empty 8GB USB drive.
Plug in your USB drive. When you launch Diskmaker it will use Spotlight to find the OS X Install program. Then, it asks to build a bootable install disk. Choose the USB drive.

Two easy ways to make a bootable version of Mavericks on a USB drive.

When you install your new SSD drive in your Mac and you want a fresh OSX installation. Plug the USB drive in to the Mac, turn on and install Mavericks.

With that new SSD, your old Mac will perform like new…without the cost of the new Mac!

There have been a few notable chip shortages over the years, I experienced the Sumitomo shortage of 1993. In a week memory prices doubled. At one point $15 memory modules were selling wholesale for $100 a module. We are not expecting such a dramatic price rise, however it illustrates how volatile component pricing can be.

News yesterday was a fire had broken out in a Hynix fab factory in China. Initial fears were it would affect RAM production, and maybe increase prices due to a shortage.

Hynix later announced that it would resume production shortly, as the fire did not affect a major part of the factory.

Currently, most news about the subject is memory production will not be affected. It has flowed into global spot prices for memory. Our latest pricing from memory brokers has spiked 5% higher, with warnings of further price increases due to uncertainty. The Australian dollar has risen in value this week, which will offset some of the increase in costs.

We are warning customers to expect higher memory prices next week on our website as the new stock filters into our market.

At Upgradeable, we use what we sell. That really is the test of the quality: a personal recommendation.

My workhorse desktop that sits under my desk at work is a Dell Vostro. It is getting a bit old, I’ve had it for three years. We have tested all sorts of memory combinations in it, and it just not keeping up with the endless Thunderbird updates that seem to arrive each week.

I don’t need a new computer, I need an SSD. I’m the boss, I can order an new computer if I want, but I really want to play with the new Crucial SSDs that have arrived.

What is an SSD I hear you say.

Solid state drives, or SSDs, are a hard drive made from flash memory. Basically it is a hard drive that is faster and runs cooler than a normal hard drive. If you want to know more, see our page on the benefits of a SSD.

This is how I installed my new drive, and yes it is this simple. I surprised myself how easy it was, and I got that satisfaction that I did it myself, geeked out and did a major upgrade!

In the kit there is a SATA to USB cable. Use this to plug into your new SSD and the USB end does into the computer’s USB. Insert the supplied CD into your CD/DVD drive and started the software. Follow the onscreen guide, which is what drive you are cloning and the target drive (the new SSD).

Once the process starts, time to go make a cup of tea. Actually, it will take a lot longer than that, depending on the size of the drive, it could take hours. Make sure you have plenty of time for the install, the computer will be unusable while it is cloning.

Once the drive has been cloned, shut down your computer. Open the case up, so the hard drive is accessible (see your manual).

There will be room for a new drive, use the supplied caddy to insert and attache the new drive. Unplug your old drive, and use the same connector to plug into the new drive. At this stage I left the existing drive in its bay, just not plugging it in. Make sure you swap over power cable as well.

Restart the computer, it should boot and operate from the new SSD. You should notice an immediate speed increase, the computer will start a lot quicker.

I left the old hard drive in its place for a week, ran the SSD to make sure everything was operating correctly. I’ll write in another blog post soon, ideas of what you can do with the old hard drive.

I have a new SSD in my computer, and it feels like I have a brand new computer. It took a small amount of work and about half an afternoon of disk cloning. It feels twice as fast, and it is like I have a new computer, and I didn’t have to go through the hassle of installing all new software!!

Hope this helps anyone considering a SSD. Do it, it is not that hard. I had the confidence of the tech support in my office, but if you buy a SSD from Upgradeable, you can rely on their support as well.